Israel jails neo-nazis

An Israeli judge has responded to last year's annual Israeli fascist fest by imprisoning eight teenagers for carrying out neo-nazi attacks. Here's Reuters:

An Israeli court jailed eight Jewish teenagers on Sunday for carrying out neo-Nazi attacks in a case that sparked revulsion in a state that was a haven for Jews after the Holocaust.

Tel Aviv District Court Judge Zvi Gurfinkel sentenced the teenagers, aged 16 to 19, to between one and seven years in prison for a "shocking and horrifying" year-long spree of attacks that targeted foreign workers, ultra-Orthodox Jews and homeless men.

The court said the group also planned to attack Arabs.

The eight teenagers were immigrants to Israel from the former Soviet Union and court documents cited social adjustment difficulties as a factor behind their involvement in the gang, which posted pro-Adolf Hitler video clips on the Internet.

One of the teenagers was the grandson of Holocaust survivors.

Gurfinkel said he gave the teenagers lengthy sentences in part to deter other Israelis from joining neo-Nazi groups.

When this case first came to light last year, the media made out that it was a freak occurrence whereas I pointed out that something like it had happened in Israel for each of the past three years. Now an Israeli judge feels that Israeli youngsters need deterring from forming or joining neo-nazi gangs. Now, how did neo-nazi thuggery get to be so fashionable in the last of the colonial settler states?